A 45-seat South Indian restaurant named after a grandmother from Chennai has opened on Havemeyer Street in Williamsburg, the latest project from a chef who spent four challenges dominating national television before a shocking elimination sent her packing. Mythily, from chef Rasika Venkatesa, opened permanently in the neighborhood on September 30, trading a fine-dining tasting menu for a shared-plate format meant to mirror how Indian families actually eat.
Venkatesa's path to her own restaurant runs through some of the country's most demanding kitchens. According to Time Out, she earned a Bachelor's degree in Hotel Management from Manipal University in India and worked internationally before joining Thomas Keller's three-Michelin-starred The French Laundry as a commis chef. From there, she was promoted to Chef de Cuisine at Mourad, the contemporary Moroccan fine-dining restaurant in San Francisco, at just 23 years old in 2022 — making her one of the youngest chefs de cuisine in the industry, according to The Best Address, and earning her a StarChefs Rising Star Award the same year.
National audiences got to know Venkatesa during Season 21 of Bravo's Top Chef: Wisconsin in 2024, as detailed by Parade. That same year, she arrived in New York and began piecing together the restaurant that would become Mythily, working through a four-month residency, wine bar and coffee tasting room pop-ups, and private events along the way, per the Time Out report. The grind eventually caught up with her; Venkatesa has said she experienced pop-up burnout after pushing for a very long time, and even paused her restaurant dream for a period despite fielding funding offers from private equity and angel investors.
From a Greenpoint Pop-Up to a Permanent Home
Before Mythily found a permanent address, Venkatesa tested the concept at Fulgurances Laundromat, a Greenpoint incubator space that hosts rotating international resident chefs. The residency ran from November 19, 2024, through February 22, 2025, serving a $94 tasting menu with an optional $65 beverage pairing, according to an Instagram post via Fulgurances. It was during that stretch, in 2025, that Venkatesa was named one of Time Out's best young chefs, and later that year she signed a lease for Mythily and went into business with partners Varun Kandadi and Nicolas Chavotier, per the seed report. The build-out was funded in part by friends and family, with Mythily raising over $100,000 through Kickstarter.
The restaurant's Williamsburg address wasn't an accident. Venkatesa reportedly found the space while getting pizza at L'Industrie, after considering other neighborhoods including the East Village, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights before favoring Williamsburg for its enclave of creatives. Mythily now sits at 129 Havemeyer Street between Grand Street and South 1st Street, operating Wednesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to Brooklyn Magazine — placing it within the neighborhood's active dining corridor south of Grand Street.
A Space Built Around a Grandmother's Memory
Every detail of the 45-seat room, split between 33 main dining room seats and a 9-seat bar trimmed with deep green tilework, was designed with Studio Purisic to evoke a South Indian village. The space features deep green walls and tiles, warm neutrals, reds and Moroccan clay plaster, and includes a painting by Art by Aira depicting Venkatesa as a child with her grandmother. That grandmother, Mythily Ramachandran, cooked every daily meal for Venkatesa's family during her childhood in Chennai and served as her earliest culinary mentor, according to What Now New York.
Mythily's development included tasting menus, while its current menu features a range of dishes. The menu draws directly on her Chennai upbringing, her travels across Tamil Nadu and a broader take on contemporary Indian food, with dishes like Kathrikkai Adaippu Curry — slow-roasted Indian eggplant filled with corn and sweet pepper adaippu — and an Eeral Fry Mousse served with nei appam and figs.
Menu Rooted in a 2024 Trip to Nagapattinam
Several dishes trace back to a 2024 research trip Venkatesa took to Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, in search of good seafood, per the seed reporting. While there, she caught and prepared red snapper and grouper alongside a fisherman and his friends, and ate a raw mango fish curry cooked by the fisherman's wife. That trip now shows up on the Mythily menu in the form of tilefish served with romanesco, black currant kosho and Nagapattinam manga curry, as well as a scallop dish cured in coriander and rum with coconut yogurt, puli inji and jaggery granita — a dish Venkatesa first debuted at Place des Fêtes. Snacks on the menu include masala pecans and vegetable fritters served with chutneys.
Dessert leans into nostalgia as well, with a Ras Malai Tres Leches made of sponge cake soaked in saffron-cardamom milk, topped with whipped white chocolate, pistachios, almonds and orange zest. There's also a filter coffee soft serve finished with cacao nibs, kadalai urundai crumble, and peanut and jaggery brittle, built on a base from Driftaway Coffee — a company Venkatesa reportedly took over in 2026.
A Bar Program to Match Modern Brooklyn Habits
The beverage list leans into low-ABV cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks alongside beers and wines from Belgium, France and Canada. Standouts include the Marina Beach, made with pineapple tepache, green cardamom shochu and ginger beer, and the Kho Kho, built on hibiscus-infused shochu and housemade rosebud syrup. Non-alcoholic options include the 2nd Innings, a mix of sarsaparilla, mint and lemon soda, and the Power Cut, a spiced black tea with fresh ginger juice and jaggery.
For Venkatesa, Mythily is also a statement of identity. She has said the restaurant serves as a platform to express who she is as a South Indian, Tamil immigrant, and queer chef in a culinary field that has traditionally lacked queer visibility, according to Made By Magazine, which notes she was raised in a traditional Tamil Brahmin household in Chennai. Her approach at Mythily reflects her take on progressive Tamil cuisine.
